<p><a href="http://wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/windows-server2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-551" src="http://wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/windows-server2.jpg" alt="Windows Server,access,permission,ipsec fails,printers offline,printer installation,trusted sites,item,installation file missing,user profiles,terminal services,dhcp superscope,client certificates,server storage,terminal server failed" width="720" height="340" /></a></p>
<p>I have made several Windows Server 2008 R2 installations recently. This servers have only one role, a <strong>File Services</strong> role. With these role, I have installed couple of Role services:</p>
<p>&#8211; <strong>File Server Resource Manager</strong> (enables you to generate storage reports, configure quotas, and define file screening policies)<br />
&#8211; <strong>Windows Search Service</strong> (permits fast file searches on this server from clients that are compatible with Windows Search Service)</p>
<p><img class=" size-full wp-image-95" src="http://wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/roles.PNG" alt="" width="475" height="224" border="0" /></p>
<p>After couple of weeks of usage, I&#8217;ve noticed that my C:\ drive was filling up very fast. With the lack of a free space on servers boot partition, I have run a report to see which files occupied boot partition which was set to 32GB, which is more than enough for Windows Server 2008 R2 machine.</p>
<p>CI Files and WID Files were consuming a lot of disk space.</p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<p>Report showed that big part of boot partition is taken by Windows Search Service files which include <strong>.ci</strong>, <strong>.dir</strong> and <strong>.wid</strong> extensions as seen in the picture below.</p>
<p><img class=" size-full wp-image-96" src="http://wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/index_files.PNG" alt="" width="588" height="129" border="0" /></p>
<p>The solution is to have the larger partition for Windows Search indexer files, or disable the role service.</p>
<p>To disable the service:</p>
<p>Open <strong>Server Manager | Expand &#8216;Roles&#8217;</strong> | Righ click on &#8216;<strong>File Services</strong>&#8216; and click &#8216;<strong>Remove Role services</strong>&#8216;</p>
<p>Remove the <strong>Windows Search Service</strong> role. Restart the server.</p>
<p>Windows Search files reside in the following path:</p>
<p><strong>C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Projects\SystemIndex\Indexer\CiFiles</strong></p>
<p>To be able to access this path, you will have to enable the &#8216;<strong>Show hidden files, folders, and drives</strong>&#8216;</p>
<p><strong>Open Windows Explorer | Click ALT | Tools | Folder Options | View tab</strong></p>
<p>Select the &#8216;<strong>Show hidden files, folders, and drives</strong>&#8216; radio button | Hit <strong>OK</strong>.</p>
<p><img class=" size-full wp-image-97" src="http://wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/show_all_files.PNG" alt="" width="336" height="252" border="0" /></p>
<p>A prompt will appear on the following folder:</p>
<p><strong>C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data</strong></p>
<p>Hit Continue to automatically add your admin account to the ACL of the above folder so we can continue.</p>
<p>Once you navigate to <strong>C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Projects\SystemIndex\Indexer\CiFiles</strong> path, move all of the files to another partition, or delete those files to free disk space on boot partition.</p>
<p>Comments are welcome!</p>